


Long is the Road That Leads Me Home

by AnaliseGrey



Series: Where Light Fears to Tread [5]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Caleb is not in a great place physically or mentally, Episode: c02e085 The Threads Converge, Episode: c02e086 The Cathedral, Episode: c02e87, Gen, Mentions of Astrid and Eodwulf - Freeform, Spoilers, some of that good good residuum nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:20:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21709627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnaliseGrey/pseuds/AnaliseGrey
Summary: This was inspired by something from Discord, in one of the servers I'm in, and was written with permission of OP:"it is going to be such an interesting dayhe said when he saw the city for the first time, 15 and still full of wonder and hope.there are so many interesting people we are going to meethe said when he was 16, arms covered in blood and killing for praise, for his country.i love this cityhe said walking through here for the first time since he broke"
Series: Where Light Fears to Tread [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1441021
Comments: 10
Kudos: 103





	Long is the Road That Leads Me Home

“ _It is going to be an interesting day._ ”

Bren is fifteen, and riding in a carriage worth more than his family made in the past five years combined. There are two other children in the carriage with him, also from Blumenthal, though he doesn’t much more than recognize them from around the village. The girl looks grim, her mouth pressed into a hard line, her hair braided back away from her face. The other boy, with nearly a foot of height on Bren just gives him a look before turning to gaze out the window again.

He doesn’t let it bother him, still too full of wonder and excitement and hope to let the other two get him down. They come around a curve in the road, and there, just in the distance, is Rexentruum, climbing the low foothills and stretching so large that Bren can’t quite comprehend the idea of a city so big. He’s of humble beginnings, but he will prove that he is worthy to be here, that he _deserves_ to be here.

He will make it his new home and he will _thrive_.

“ _There are so many interesting people we are going to meet_ ,” he says at sixteen, up to his elbows in blood, arms full of sharp, blistering crystal. The power sparks between his teeth as he snaps for scraps of praise, as he competes with his cohort, his compatriots- they’re not his friends, not anymore, no matter what they tell each other and how close they huddle at night in the dark and silence of Ikithon’s estate just outside the city. You can’t be friends with a tool. You can’t be friends with someone whose body you’re willing to climb over to succeed, and he has no doubt that given the opportunity to please their teacher, both of the others would gladly climb over him, and he knows he would do the same to them. He is here with a purpose- to keep his homeland safe, to protect his family and the people of the Empire, by whatever means necessary. He will do these things in shadow so that others may live free in the light, and he will glory in how he keeps his country safe.

“ _I love this city_ ,” he says at thirty-three, no longer innocent, no longer the ravening welp, starving for approval. His words barely register in his own mind, quiet and frail and _scared_ , terrified out of his mind, knowing where they are, and knowing who he might encounter. It’s an almost out of body experience being back here now, seeing the familiar cobblestone streets even after all this time, seeing the Candles and remembering, the ghost of the child he once was calling to him. Despite the fact that he knows it’s very real, there’s a sense of surreality to things- the colors pop brighter in defiance of the overcast skies and haze of rain, and the world doesn’t feel solid as it should. But despite all of that, despite knowing that being here could well spell his doom, he can’t help but feel some truth in that sentence.

He _does_ love this city, and most of the people in it; not everything here was awful, after all. His first year, and even a large portion of the second, was full of things he could never have imagined living back in Blumenthal. He remembers the first time he saw the library at the Academy he’d almost cried, overwhelmed by the sheer number of books in one place. He remembers the small sweet shop he and Astrid and Eodwulf used to frequent when they could, the kindly old woman who owned it slipping extras into their small packets of candy because she thought they needed fattening up. He remembers the parades at the holidays and the banners at harvest tide, and so many other small, precious moments.

Not everything had been cruelty and pain and obedience; even up til the very end there had been good times.

He’d fallen in love here.

He lived here for such a short amount of time, relatively, but almost no other place has made such an impact on his life, on who he was, who he is, and who he might someday become, assuming he survives the day.

They pass into the Shimmerward, and alongside the constant stream of panic, he can’t help but think-

_Home sweet home._

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by something from Discord, in one of the servers I'm in, and was written with permission of OP:
> 
> " _it is going to be such an interesting day_ he said when he saw the city for the first time, 15 and still full of wonder and hope.   
> _there are so many interesting people we are going to meet_ he said when he was 16, arms covered in blood and killing for praise, for his country.   
> _i love this city_ he said walking through here for the first time since he broke"


End file.
